Amazon RTO Push Reflects Fear Recruits Don’t Get Company Culture

Amazon.com Inc.’s controversial decision to bring corporate employees back to the office full-time reflects executives’ concerns that recent recruits don’t understand the company’s unique culture.

Last month, Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy surprised employees with a memo ordering them to start reporting to their desks five days a week, beginning in January. Amazon currently lets many of them work from home two days a week.

The return-to-office edict stunned many of the company’s 350,000-plus corporate workers and renewed a heated debate in the tech industry about employee perks and the value of in-person work. Amazon employees and pundits wondered if this was Jassy’s ...